A Caffeinated Approach to the Blizzard Near You

You look out the window and it’s whiter than a line of people at Starbucks.

You are stuck in your dorm room, estranged from friends and family. You begin to worry about things that are not only beyond your control, but out of your physical reach.

Oh no, today your existential fettering far exceeds the mere “Why does being happy really matter and what’s the point of school and am I worthy of being loved and all that jazz,” and enters into the rare, dark territory of who will feed your pet lizard back at home if you don’t make it back this weekend?

You know no one cares about your lizard Hanz. No one’s ever cared about Hanz.

And the whole Amazon Marketplace is confusing you and you want answers. At what point do you get free shipping? Holy crap but really doe, if you have it this bad, what are homeless people doing right now? At least you can go rent some Uno or something from the Piedmont desk.

The small parameters that you and your roommate have shared since the dawn of the semester you swear are narrowing, impinging upon itself. And the realization of your helpless immobility makes it hard for you to breathe. You notice things that escaped your attention before such as — how on earth did we go this long without sweeping? Do dust bunnies reproduce as rapidly as their living counterparts? You think it must be so.

The small parameters that you and your roommate have shared since the dawn of the semester you swear are narrowing, impinging upon itself.

Gosh, it smells in here… What if the smell drives you to madness and causes you to hallucinate? You see all the piles of soiled laundry everywhere and confront the fact that you’ve forgotten how to fold. Cotton sucks. Why can’t everything be made of Spandex so that none of it would ever have to be folded? Then you ask yourself if anyone really cares if your clothes are wrinkled because they are just pieces of fabric and doesn’t it matter more that your intentions in life are not wrinkled?

You reach the difficult conclusion that you are messy, but you are a good person.

Amidst the eye of the storm of your living mess, your gaze falls upon the face of Joel Osteen on a book on your bookshelf that an emphatic stranger gave you for a graduation gift. You think to yourself, what better time to implement positive and effective, faith-based life strategies than right now? You have no clue whether Joel Osteen actually said that or if that’s what he’s all about, but it seems legit — you just imagine that phrase coming out of such a keen, angelic, ingratiating smile….

You’re inspired. You write on your dollar-store whiteboard a New Year’s resolution, because hey, change is never too late: BE A CLEANER PERSON.

Your resolution goes pretty well as you find yourself diligently cleaning — for twenty minutes. Then all hell breaks loose. For in your closet you uncover a dusty parcel bearing the word “Keurig” in inviting, mahogany script. You have a fantastic idea. Surviving #blizzardlife will never be the same…

Your resolution goes pretty well as you find yourself diligently cleaning — for twenty minutes. Then all hell breaks loose.

You wipe the resolution off your whiteboard with your flannel sleeve to make room for a different approach, courtesy of your newfound Keurig:

Step 1: Drink as much caffeine as physically possible.

Step 2: Engage in the wonder that is being highly caffeinated in a contained space! Ladies and gentlemen, that is how the hamster came to acquire its wheel.

Thank you, Joel Osteen.

In order to share this revelation with other blizzard survivors, you pen the following tips with an unsteady hand:

Chug a pot, work out, and do push ups as hard as you can and have a heart attack and die.

Drink beverages with ethanol if that’s your thing.

Ask your roommate, do you want to build a snowman? Or ride our bikes through College Hall?

Actually talk to your RA…

Eat obscene quantities of ramen in attempts to get sodium drunk. Is that possible? Answer: anything is possible when you’re buzzed on the liquid spawn of the almighty Keurig.

Figure out ways to embezzle your tuition.

Get to know people on your floor. Because you like people more when you are caffeinated and you are down to your last pack of stale fruit snacks and you need their food stuffs.

Cry. Endlessly. Let it all out, and then some. After all, what human is immune to crying spells when they’ve undergone an extended period of time — a few days via blizzard time — cracked out on Mother Nature’s favorite, mild stimulant. There is gonna be a crash. Note: it is particularly vital to stay hydrated after copious onslaughts of crying, let alone from consumption of coffee in those quantities. Damn, Felicia.

Get jittery and loud and yelly. Appear cool! Make your floormates think you must be throwing a party because you are making so much noise but no, it’s just your inability to control yourself and it’s actually painful to be this wired help? anyone plz??